But you might actually be surprised at what a real, road-going Nissan Altima actually is.

The new model, which effectively replaces the unloved Maxima, was launched this week but you can forget about any high-powered, V8, rear-wheel-drive version like you’d see on a V8 Supercar grid.

Instead, the Thai-built Atlima is powered either by a four-cylinder or V6 engine and is devoutly front-wheel-drive.

While it might be banging doors with Commodores, Falcons and AMGs on the race-track, in the showroom battle, its main competitors will be the Toyota Camry and Aurion, Honda Accord and even the slightly smaller Mazda 6.

Unlike the Mazda, however, there’s a choice of petrol engines (although no turbo-diesel option) starting with a 2.5-litre four-cylinder making 127kW of power and 230Nm of torque.

A version of Nissan’s multi-awarded V6 is the other choice, this time with 3.5-litres of displacement and 183kW and 312Nm.

A CVT – technology with which Nissan is pretty conversant these days – is the only transmission choice in either variant.

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The range kicks off with the entry-level ST model at a pretty keen $29,990 and on footprint alone, it’s fair bit of car for that sort of money.

Standard kit runs to keyless entry, cruise-control, alloy wheels, steering-wheel controls, Bluetooth connectivity, three years roadside-assistance and a full safety suite including electronic braking aids and stability control as well as a version of torque vectoring.

The ST-L at $35,890 is next and adds bigger alloys, a larger information screen and leather accents in the trim. It remains a four-cylinder car.

So does the next model, the Ti at $40,190 which adds 18-inch wheels, blind-spot monitoring, Xenon headlights and a powered rear sunshade.

The flagship car is the Ti-S which is the only way to get the V6 engine. It also adds paddle shifters for the CVT.

Premium paint is the only option across the board but, missing from the specification sheet is full leather trim and heated front seats.

Even so, the Altima presents pretty well with an interior that seems well screwed together.

Our only observation there is that there doesn’t seem to be much differentiation between the various model grades and a glance at the bootlid badge was often needed to determine which model was which.

Driving the Altima makes you wonder who will buy the upmarket V6 model. That’s because the four-cylinder is anything but underdone and seems to work well with the CVT (as does the slightly smoother V6, of course).

Part of that is down to the CVT’s tuning which makes the most of the engine’s torque rather than rely on letting it rev hard all the time and have the car catch up with it as some CVTs are wont to do.

The handling is about what you’d expect with no real encouragement from the chassis to throw it about, but enough grip to be safe and secure anyway.

The electrically-assisted steering does its best to restrict driver information to a need-to-know basis however.

More impressive, though, are the ride and refinement levels.

The base-model on its higher-profile tyres is actually the smoothest of the lot, but even the V6 with its thinner sidewalls and heavier engine soaks up potholes with ease.

Overall, the Altima fails to break any new ground, but it does cover its existing turf pretty convincingly. Then again, so did the outgoing Maxima yet it remained a fairly comprehensively ignored car throughout its life.

The most curious thing is that even though the Altima’s silhouette forms the basis of the Nissan race-car, it’s highly unlikely that anybody hanging off the fence at a V8 Supercar race will short-list the model.

It’s just not racy enough to appeal to appeal to that type of buyer, but the flip-side is that for the car-buyer most likely to look towards a big, front-drive sedan, the Altima ticks plenty of boxes.

How that sits with Nissan’s investment in V8 Supercar racing is the real remaining question.

The deception

So how can there be an Altima screaming around race-tracks with a bellowing V8 engine and rear-drive when such a model doesn’t exist here or anywhere else in the global Altima line-up?

The answer lies in the rules and regulations of V8 Supercar, this country’s premier motorsport class.

Those rules stipulate a V8 engine of no more than five-litres, rear-wheel-drive and a transaxle-style gearbox.

Effectively, the modern V8 Supercar is a carbon-fibre body draped over a space-frame race-chassis.

So what bits are actually from an Altima? Really, only the roof panel, bonnet, bootlid and the driver’s door. The rest of the bodywork is carbon-fibre and the mechanical bits and pieces are all V8-Supercar specific.

Those components are pretty much the same across all four brands racing today, as well.

The exception is the engine which must be from the same maker as the road car.

To that end, the Altima race-car uses a destroked (to five-litres) version of the petrol V8 that powers the new Nissan Patrol off-roader.

But does a V8-powered Nissan Altima exist anywhere else in the world? Nope.